I’ll be playing MC this Saturday at the Yale Center here in Beijing for a discussion among four fantastic educational leaders, two local and two from New York. Here’s the event description:

“The leaders will discuss both Chinese and western opinions on how to raise healthy, happy, creative children. How much should children play, and how much should they study? How can we teach young children to be moral, and what lessons should we teach them? How should parents balance the need for children to enjoy childhood with the need for children to prepare for competitive future realities? What programs exist to promote healthy, vibrant young people?”

On Sunday, I’ll be speaking at the Courtyard Institute here in Beijing at an event hosted by 美中说 and Project 朋友. The tongue-in-cheek question for the evening is “Who will steal your job in ten years, a graduate from Peking University, or a graduate from Oberlin?” This question is, of course, a proxy for the larger debate about the value of the Chinese school system and its reliance on high-stakes test, and the western school system and its embrace of the liberal arts. For a preview of the event, watch this.

Friends often ask me to suggest some good books on China, particularly during summer. So here, at the mid-point of the summer, I’ll point people to a good list provided by Project Pengyou. Enjoy your summer reading!

Who is Michael Levy?

Michael Levy is the author of Kosher Chinese: Living, Teaching, and Eating with China’s Other Billion, a memoir about his experiences as a Peace Corps Volunteer in western China. The book met with much critical acclaim and was the recipient of the 2012 Barnes and Noble DISCOVER award, given for the best book of the year written by a young author. Mike is currently the head of the middle school at Presidio Knolls, a progressive Chinese immersion school in San Francisco.